BANGKOK, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Thailand, struggling to find
storage for a rice buying scheme that cost the country its crown
as the world's biggest exporter of the grain, will rent private
warehouses to store next month's harvest, government officials
said on Wednesday.

Thailand's rice millers had warned that collection might
have to stop for lack of storage space, as the country expects
to produce about 8 million to 10 million tonnes of paddy rice in
the February harvest, or about 5 million to 7 million tonnes
once husked.

That is in addition to government purchases of up to 20
million tonnes of milled rice in an intervention scheme kicked
off in October 2011 aimed at helping farmers by paying prices
above the market rate.

"There's no problem at all and we can rent more private
warehouses to store rice," Boonsong told reporters. "However, we
would need a few days or a week to check them out, and clean
them up to make them suitable for storing rice."

The government will rent an additional 180 warehouses over
the next few weeks to accommodate the grain, a commerce ministry
official said. There are already 60 warehouses across the
country storing the grain it has bought so far.

Despite the costs of the rice buying policy, Boonsong said
the government had to maintain it to help poor farmers, who form
the majority of the population.

The government has said it expects losses from the rice
intervention scheme to amount to about 80 billion baht, or $2.6
billion, by last September, equivalent to about a fifth of
Thailand's projected budget deficit in the last fiscal year.

COMPLAINTS OF COLLECTION DELAYS

Under the rice-buying scheme, millers collect paddy in
return for certificates allowing farmers to get money from a
state bank. Millers husk the grain and send it to government
warehouses within seven days to be stored.

But bulging stocks have forced millers to slow the process.

The intervention scheme could grind to a halt unless the
government acted quickly, Manat Kitprasert, head of the Thai
Rice Mills Association said.

"We need to stop collecting rice from farmers as there's no
space to store it," he said.

Some farmers in the main rice-growing central provinces have
complained of having to wait more than three weeks for millers
to collect grain because of lack of warehouse space, said a
local government official who asked not to be named.

Such delays could force farmers to sell rice on the open
market, eventually depressing prices, which have ranged as much
as $135 to $140 per tonne above those of rivals such as India,
Vietnam, Pakistan and Cambodia.

"Thai rice prices may ease as supply is rising, but we don't
expect that would help boost exports significantly as our prices
are still high compared to Vietnam and India," said a
Bangkok-based trader.

India last year displaced Thailand from its position as the
world's biggest exporter, which it had held since 1983.

India shipped 10.25 million tonnes, according to the United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Vietnam remained the
second-biggest exporter with 7.72 million tonnes, according to a
Vietnamese newspaper.

Thai trade data showed the country exported just 6.9 million
tonnes of rice in 2012, down 34 percent from a record 10.6
million in 2011.

The government has bought 9 million tonnes of paddy since
renewing the rice-buying scheme last October, a commerce
ministry official said.

That yields about 6 million tonnes of milled rice, adding to
the 14 million tonnes of milled rice held from the previous crop
year, traders and industry officials estimate.

Boonsong has said up to 7.3 million tonnes of rice has been
sold from stocks in government-to-government deals.

But the ministry has halted publication of shipment data and
exporters say they have not seen the type of port activity such
a large figure would entail, so they are sceptical about
Boonsong's claim.
(Reporting by Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat; Editing by Alan
Raybould and Clarence Fernandez)